Every contingent being must have a preponderating cause.

If a person’s mind wavers and allows that such a thing might come into existence without an originator, or that—while remaining contingent and equally receptive to existence and non-existence—it might simply exist without anything tipping the balance toward its existence, he will all the more readily allow the same for other originated and contingent things. Yet once he is inwardly certain of the matter, his knowledge of the specific conclusion—namely, “This originated entity has an originator,” or “This contingent entity has a preponderating cause”—does not rely on any universal proposition; accordingly, there is no need for a formal demonstrative syllogism.

This becomes still clearer when you observe that no human being who seeks to know something through reflection and adduces a demonstrative syllogism whose soundness he has verified fails to be capable of knowing that same thing without recourse to such logical demonstration.

This exposes the falsity of their claim that every theoretical science must rest on two premises. Indeed, apart from these logicians you will not find any class of rational people who frame their proofs in the two-premise fashion they prescribe; rather, they simply cite the evidence that entails the conclusion. A proof may consist of a single premise, of two premises, or of several, depending on what the investigator or debater requires, for people’s needs differ.

We have treated this at length in our commentary on the Muḥaṣṣal, demonstrating that the overwhelming majority of rational thinkers censure those logicians who insist that every theoretical science requires exactly two indispensable premises and neither fewer nor more.

You should grasp this point from propositions established solely by reason and not from those proven by the texts of the prophets, for it is in such rational matters that the unsoundness of their logic becomes apparent. Consider their example: “Every intoxicant is wine, and every wine is unlawful; therefore every intoxicant is unlawful.” Yet when the material is taken from matters known through the statements of the prophets, the need for the major proposition becomes manifest